Content count

Popular Content

Got my bargain of the day; set of steel winter wheels for the car (16") - with tyres, ContiWinter Contact, 2 of which are brand new & the other 2 need replacing in a few miles (3mm tread). £100 for the lot!

Hi all, Over the years I have managed to accumulate various pieces of BMW documentation from an assortment of sites and sources. I thought it time to place them all in one location where everyone can access them. They are available from my Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0BxDd4Jzlov8Efmg5VVVEaTZVYkplN3MzaGZLQUEzaWFjU0luMl81cW9oSGxlOENGbTlKQW8&usp=sharing The folder currently contains the following: E60 engineer training modules; M Division documentation; Various E60 manuals and guides, and an assortment of BMW presentations. As I find more I will upload them to the Drive and update this post. Mods - Bearing this in mind, perhaps it would be handy to make this pinned? Best, Horsey *Please note I do not own the documents or claim to be the author of them*

Mmmm I suppose it's poss the car was serviced religiously by a previous owner and perhaps on a software update switched it off ??
Is is there anyone on here that has the correct equipment to help me ??
as local to me in caterham as poss ?

some of you will know I was fortunate to get invited by Nakaisan of Rauh Welt Begriff to join them at Idlers 12hr in Japan
for those interested I have left my facebook photo album public so you can have a nosey at what we got up to - https://www.facebook.com/tristan.nicholson/media_set?set=a.10155663049389047.1073741847.502629046&type=3
some of the better pics below, apologies quality of content isn't great, I was kept busy with the cars and stuff so was just snapping with the phone whenever I could.
outside the RWB headquarters, it don't look like much out in the middle of a Tokyo residential suburb, the dozen 911s in various conditions give away whats really inside
i arrived on the Wednesday morning and we would enter 6 cars into the 12hr race at twin ring motegi in just a few days. most of the prep work had been done by the time I arrived. just some new rear wings to get fitted to a couple of them, some minor chassis tweaking, and sticker up to be done.
one part of the workshop is where you will find Nakai and the RWB family hanging out and chilling. its full of things that he likes and is inspired by, souvineers and gifts hes received decorate the walls. aswell as the famous wingback chair! be careful if you take a drink from the fridge though, it could've been in there many years!
there are various notes, and scribbles all over the place which Nakaisan uses to keep track of what hes doing!
post-its on a display cabinet make up his order book and a 3 month planned taped to the side of his pool table tell him where hes meant to be going!
by Friday a lot of the rwb family from all over the world had gathered at HQ, either to take part in Idlers or watch and support.
amazing how many people make the effort to come for the event, shows the true spirit of rwb, its not just cars, its a family.
Nakaisan put on a big bbq party for us on Friday evening, getting lots of very special and expensive fresh seafood from the other side of Japan.
Christian Coujin kept us well lubricated with a constant flow of JD from the second I arrived. I think we went through at least 15ltrs of straight warm JD!
ill update this later when I get home cos crappy office one keeps freezing and im losing patience!

so a little more on Adriana... this car was involved in a massive accident last year, and until about a month ago was still a wreck
nakaisan and the team worked tirelessy to bring her back and in his words " i have pride in my work, in my cars, i couldnt just fix her back to normal, i had to bring her back bigger and better"
and that he did, with the reveal of the new "heavenly" wide kit, measuring 87" across! the kit is still in prototype form and a few laps of motegi would be the test run to see how adriana performs after the repairs and new kit.
so the fastest lap was a 2017 GT3RS settin times in the 2min20secs region
then along came Nakaisan, in a 20 odd year old 993, standard 3.6 with manual box, on a test drive after the rebuild, an electrical issue meaning the engine wasnt running perfect, it was a damp to slight wet track, the car was on slicks, and he smashed the lap times setting 2min19s... he really is super skilled on track aswell as the workshop.
anyway after the race, it was time to pack up n head back to the garage arriving there around 2am on monday morning. it had been a long 2 days wide awake but somehow i wasnt tired at all!
monday after some sleep we went back to the garage and helped clean up the cars, youd never know theyd just spent 12hrs flat out round motegi
i did get to see some parts of tokyo while i was there, Nakaisan was kind enough to take us to dinner a few times which was quite the experience too, not just the food but getting there in his v8 chevy truck, gangsta tunes blasting as he drifted it at speed round the tokyo freeways!
plenty more pics and video on my facebook, click the link in 1st post or the Taiwan team took some really excellent pics here, well worth a look and make my iphone snaps look so crap!
https://www.facebook.com/pg/rwbtaiwan.com.tw/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1242162359229331

ok back to it...
so its saturday morning and from now i would be awake for 2 whole days, not getting a single minute of sleep!
everyone gathered at HQ around 6pm, again Nakaisan got in a shit load of pizza and drinks for everyone.
once we are all there he organised who was driving what and we set off in convoy in the cars making our way to the freeway.
its about 2.5hr drive to motegi from here, but we would stop at a services half way where more cars of supporters would join us.
yes the race cars are driven on the road to the circuit, do the 12hours of hard driving and then drive back to the garage!
we arrived at motegi around 1am in pitch black. at 2am they opened the pitlane and we could enter and start setting up our pits.
at 4am we had the team briefing and then at 7am and race start at 8am. final checks done on the cars and the race scrutineers checked over all the cars and our equipment. 6 cars would go out and race, a 7th, the freshly rebuilt Adriana was only there to put in a few test runs, more to come on that later
the next 12hours was a bit of a blur, i lost track of who did what and where, 8 drivers per car working in shifts of 4, taking half hour stints each time between refuelling and swapping drivers. if you werent driving you were helping in the pits, there was always something to do.
there were a couple small incidents, one needing a repair to the bumper and bonnet, another needing a wheel change
but one major incident in the later hours of the race, one car spun out as the light faded and rain came down, hitting the barrier and retiring the car sadly.
but yeah other than that it was a successful race, we came 2nd overall and all but one car crossed the chequered flag. good result!

I updated my 2 sealed boxed woofers in the boot to 8", 8 Ohm, 70W RMS (55-2971 by MCM Audio Select, China)
for £8.22 (note drivers also available 6.5" to 15", 8 ohm 89db and 4 ohm 92db from £8-£45). Cheap little bangers for the car.
Now, I really wasn't expecting much at that price (gambling £20 for a pair delivered) and with a sensitivity rating of 89dB and 20oz (0.56Kg) magnets but I was happily surpriced to get a much improved performance, perhaps 50% louder, more efficient. The old woofer coils seem to have deteriorated over time (probably cooked) lowering the impedance gradually over the years to the point where the Amp was struggling to drive them efficiently (higher current draw). These replacement speakers on the old Amp suffer a slight drop under the extreme voltage swings to idle rpm (when loaded 12v-14.7v) but not very noticable, so I'm much happier with the bass response (which wasn't too bad previously anyway). Edit: Makes my head hurt if I want it .

If you have the Chrome ones that are going to go on, take a look at the clips on them - they'll be the same as the ones you're about to remove. You'll see the plastic tongs that hold the grills into the bonnet. They're not stiff at all but you'll probably need something slightly wider to help press both sides down at the same time. Practice this on the new ones and then you'll progress faster with those on the car whilst twisting your neck through 90 degrees

I don't think it's very accurate. My dad used it and over filled his sump on his F10. He poured in what it asked for then afterwards fired off a sump too full warning. Thankfully he was only a week or two away from a service.
My wife's C200 Kompressor had one and it wasn't very accurate either but fair play to the dark side, they had a hidden menu for measuring oil to the nearest 10 or 50ml IIRC. It was fine once you used the hidden menu as it gave you decent accuracy. The BMW ones are nearest 250ml. Not accurate enough for me personally.
Is it because the original BMW one if you choose to extend it is by Mondial?
I used my ski hatch yesterday to allow to take home 3m copper tubes for B&Q. Pipes were tucked in with some padding against the back of the boot and sat on top of my dashboard above the idrive on mire padding, front passenger seatbelt over the top of them and no bother. Ski hatch is handy, saves having to fold down the rear seats after first moving the littl'uns car seat out the way first!

I'm taking this in next week to get the rose/ball joint done on both sides. Is there anything else (mounts, rubber bits etc) down there which should get changed while he's there? The rear subframe mounts have already been done, I asked the mechanic about the anti roll bar drop links as I saw them changed in the above video - he said if there is no problem to just leave it alone as there would be knocking if there was an obvious problem.
I can't see any problems with the way the car drives, or noises/any knocking going over bumps.
The car has done 123,000 miles
Thanks!

Just updated the OE BMW CD player in the car to a slightly later unit, which has enabled the AUX functionality Just run the appropriate cable into the glovebox. At last I'm no longer stuck to just using CD's!

When you are young and single you come in from a hard day and look at what's in the fridge and decide to go to bed.
When you are older and married you come in from a hard day and look at what's in bed and decide to go to the fridge.

Thanks for the vid, my pdc been dead for 6 months now but always ingored it as I have the reversing camera. I knew it was the sensors in the bumper and not the plastic trim after the clicking test. Just never had the balls to remove the bumper but as there is actually a good video showing how to do it might give this a shot.

Hi
The E34 had a number of different topmounts fitted. It depended on engine sizes Early mounts changed around 90/91 The diameter of the damper is not the issue it is the diameter and length of the piston rod. They need to match. If you do a search you will see the variety of dampers because of the top mount issue. Check your vin in realoem and measure the size of the nut and rod of the damper piston. You could buy new top mounts to suit your new suspension kit which is a worthwhile improvement.

1. I was devastated to find out my wife was having an affair, but, by turning to religion, I was soon able to come to terms with the whole thing. I converted to Islam, and we're stoning her in the morning.
2. Went to our local bar with my wife last night. Locals started shouting "paedophile!" and other names at me, just because my wife is 24 and I'm 50. It completely spoiled our 10th anniversary.
3. My son was thrown out of school today for letting a girl in his class give him a hand-job. I said "Son, that's three schools this year! You'd better stop before you're banned from teaching altogether."
4. If you get an email entitled, "Nude Photo of Hillary Clinton", don't open it, it contains a nude photo of Hillary Clinton